A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator yesterday proposed an amendment to the Teachers’ Act (教師法) that would authorize schools to freeze the salary of teachers who have been suspended for involvement in sexual assault cases against students.
“If we allow teachers to remain on the payroll while the cases remain under investigation [by the court], this will have a negative impact on the victims, their parents and society as a whole,” KMT Legislator Chao Li-yun (趙麗雲) told reporters.
Chao initiated the proposal in response to a call by a number of civic groups who have urged the Ministry of Education to allow the new regulations to apply retroactively so that schools could fire any teachers found guilty of sexually assaulting students.
On Nov. 6, the legislature passed an amendment to the Act, plugging a loophole in the original legislation that allowed teachers implicated in sexual abuse cases to continue teaching.
The amendment stipulated that a teacher review committee must suspend any teacher allegedly involved in sexual abuse within a month of the alleged incident and refer the case for investigation by the school’s gender equality committee.
The offender can be dismissed, suspended or denied renewed employment if the investigation found the allegations to be true.
Before the amendment, committees — usually composed of teachers or administrators — often failed to act against colleagues and, through indecision or inaction, allowed teachers found guilty by the gender equity education committee to continue teaching, sometimes for years.
Some schools had suspended teachers who were found guilty of sexually assaulting students and allowed the teachers to receive half of their salary during the suspension.
National Alliance of Parents Organization board member Hsu Yung-chia (?? supported Chao’s proposal, saying it was unreasonable for the government to keep the teachers on the payroll after they had seriously harmed students.
Meanwhile, KMT Legislator Cheng Ru-fen (鄭汝芬) launched a proposed amendment to the Computer-Processed Personal Data Protection Act (電腦處理個人資料保護法), obliging Internet service providers to ensure the security of users’ accounts.
Cheng’s bill came after the Consumers Foundation said that the majority of portal Web sites made their users take legal responsibility for their accounts and passwords being stolen.
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